Tag Archives: small business video

How do you know if you’re financially healthy? As with physical health, there are certain indicators you can use. Knowing your savings account balances, retirement plan status, debt load, interest rates, and credit score can give you a picture of your current position. If you don’t like what you see, here are some tips to help you get your money in shape:

- Just like you plan your meals and prepare them ahead of time to make sure you eat well, you can plan and automate your savings. Create an automatic deposit at the beginning of the month into an account named after your goal.

- Focus on what you want. As with physical fitness, it’s easier to reach your goals if you focus on the healthy foods you can have instead of what you can’t. Focus on what you truly want to spend money on and what your values are, instead of what you can’t afford.

- Tell someone about it. We’re more successful in reaching our goals when we write them down or share them. Let a friend or partner support your savings or debt reduction goals.

- Reward yourself. Pick an activity that you enjoy and that fits within your budget (taking a walk, drawing, watching your favorite show). When you reach your goal, you can do the thing you love.

- Break it down. In trying to be physically healthy, it helps to look at a daily or weekly goal instead of your overall, long-term goal. When it comes to your money, break your financial goal into small steps, and focus on completing each step, not the whole journey.

- Use a coach. It’s hard to hold yourself accountable, or see what systems are getting in your way. Use a coach to help you get where you want to go.

mpoweredis a Colorado-based nonprofit resource for individuals and families in Colorado who want to learn about money management and participate in coaching to achieve an individual definition of financial success. Since 2002, mpowered has provided affordable programs to help more than 40,000 people make informed financial choices. With offices throughout metro Denver, mpowered is a leader in financial education and champions financial stability as one of the most important components of a healthy lifestyle.

Regardless of profession, it’s always fun to get new “toys” to improve your workflow and quality. That’s certainly true in the world of video production. It’s always tempting to over-integrate that new technology when you first open the box. I remember finding any excuse to use the GoPro after I first got one for Christmas.

As exciting as that honeymoon period can be, you have to ultimately understand that you get the most out of your new asset by knowing the right time to employ its uses. So how do you figure out that balance?

Think of what you do every day… maybe like decorating a wedding cake. You have to remember your fundamentals, so you can bake a great cake. If you don’t do that, all of your fancy frosting and decorations are just covering up a cake that doesn’t taste very good.

Then, nail those fundamentals. In video production terms, shoot sequences, capture natural sound, quality audio and clear video. Bake a great cake then, break out your new toys and add the frosting. Having a solid foundation allows you to incorporate your new techniques while ensuring your final product has both style and substance.

The social video scene is rapidly changing and the integration of native video on Facebook is a hot topic. Let me emphasize – I still think you should post business, corporate and non-profit videos to YouTube if you want them found on Google. In my last blog, I talked about uploading video on Facebook vs. YouTube… let’s now weigh in on the types of videos you should post to each platform.

YouTube is an ideal place for music and entertainment as well as viral videos… some of its most popular content. It is also great for a how-to video to guide your viewers through a process and establish you as an expert in your space. Other types of videos well-suited for YouTube include professional corporate and training videos. Videos that are on the longer side do well in this space too. If you upload a video to YouTube, you can share it to Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites using the Share function.

Here is an example of a video I like for YouTube…. showing us how LLS is funding research in the labs at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

Facebook is a popular platform for mobile users to share videos they shoot with their phones. It’s super easy to load these phone videos directly to Facebook. Short is better too. Videos on Facebook tend to be 30 seconds or less. Also, Facebook videos auto-play silently, so it’s important that your video pops visually – to encourage your audience to stop and listen. If you upload a video to Facebook directly, it’s much harder to share on other social media sites, or embedding in a blog, which could hurt your SEO ranking and your chances of being discovered on Google.

Here is a link to a video example directly uploaded to Facebook . I would like to note that I could not get the video to embed in this blog - just a link to the video on our Facebook page and a captured screen shot.

Don’t overlook YouTube as your main video platform. For now, you’re better off sharing your YouTube video to your Facebook page. What do you think? Does it make sense to post your video on both platforms?

Fireside Production’s Social Media Video is a creative and affordable way to capture a business or non-profit event and deliver it to online viewers quickly. We developed this package in 2009 to offer our Clients a cost-effective option to share their events… and it has been a huge hit!

Our Social Media Video package includes a two-hour shoot with complete production of a Two-Minute Video delivered within three business days. The cost is also unbeatable. We do remove the script- and edit-approval with this package to offer a super low-cost, quick-turn video. This allows our Clients to showcase their events and to capture footage to promote those annual events the following year.

The Fireside Production Social Media Video package is a fabulous way to allow viewers to experience an event – and our team makes the process easy and enjoyable. Contact Us today to learn more.

At Fireside Production our Core Values are something we strive to live by every day. One of our core values that really resonates with me is the desire to Create Experiences. While amazing travels and events might be what first come to mind when you think about an experience you want to remember, we try to create something memorable for our Clients on a day-to-day basis. We want your experience with Fireside to be one you truly enjoy and remember!

If you are new to creating a video for your organization, it can be a little intimidating - but we are here to help! From the moment you first contact Fireside Production, we hope to Bring Spirit! and get you excited about your project. We are happy to use our knowledge and experience to help you Think Strategicallyabout the best approach for your video… we love hosting Clients at our cozy studio suite. Out in the field – while capturing video – our team brings a relaxed attitude to help put everyone at ease – I don’t know about you, but I get a little nervous in front of a camera!

Give us a call anytime you have a question or want to bounce an idea around! Video is such a powerful tool to create an experience for your viewers; we would love to hear from you to see how we can help to create one you will never forget!

Yes… I am an NFL fan! This is the time of year when many coaching changes happen in the NFL and this year, my favorite team - the mighty Denver Broncos - made a change as well. Thankfully, this is not a yearly occurrence but when it happens, there’s always cause for concern for a die-hard fan like me. With a new coach, the biggest question I always have is… how do you build a successful team? I have found this is a question that transcends sports and is extremely fitting when building a team in the business world. So, what are the ingredients for a successful team? Here are a few things I look for…

1. First, you need an all-star at the top. Notice how all great NFL teams have a great quarterback? It’s the same in business; you need a great signal caller. It doesn’t hurt to surround the QB with talent as well.

2. Next, find people who care about learning. I don’t care how good someone is at what they do – if they already know it all, there is no room for improvement.

3. We all have egos to an extent, but the best people to have on your team are those whose egos are not too big or too fragile. There is nothing worse than offering advice or criticism to someone and watching them crumble. Listening and openness is huge when building your team.

4. Most importantly, find people who really love what they do. All the talent in the world is no match for true passion.

Of course, there are many ingredients to building a championship team in any field, but having a system and standard in place is key. Like an NFL team has an offensive or defensive system, we at Fireside Production have our system too. It’s called our Core Values and we invite you to check them out.

Fireside Production is fortunate to take our video production capabilities “on the road” to serve a number of our Clients out-of-town. Having an efficient and well-conceived workflow is critical to producing high-quality projects – at speed – away from the cozy confines of the Fireside suite.

January 2015 finds us in the desert working at the Humana Challenge golf tournament in La Quinta, California. This year, we’ve taken our production and speed up a notch - with exceptional improvements to our tried and true methods. This enables the Fireside team to produce a number of videos for our Client each day to really bring that Humana Challenge experience to life – in real time.

We are shooting with a Panasonic AF-100 camera, which uses smaller video files captured on an SD card. We can quickly move the files directly onto our MacBook in no time: 20 minutes of video takes less than two minutes to move from storage to laptop and consumes less than 4 GB of space. Final Cut X imports the video in a flash (90 seconds or less) and compresses – and even shares - an edited piece in less time than it takes to watch.

Spending less time and energy on cumbersome hardware or frustrating software is allowing us to concentrate on what we love most: producing memorable stories for our Clients – quickly and efficiently!

As I contemplate what this year will look like for social media, the one thing that stands out in most everything I read is… video. Video will be the choice for content distribution in 2015, but where do you put it?

There’s a lot of buzz about uploading video directly to Facebook. It seems the social scene for video is changing. The standard process was to create a video, publish it to YouTube and share it via Facebook. However, the recent trend is showing that content marketers are loading videos directly to Facebook. According to comScore in August 2014, Facebook surpassed YouTube in the number of video views via desktop. This is largely due to the auto-replay function.

According to SocialBakers’ data, Facebook overtook YouTube in 2014 as the video posting platform of choice. Check out the numbers…

What does this mean? YouTube is still the place to host your videos since it is the #2 search engine in the world, which translates to better Google search rankings for your piece – if optimized well. Perhaps try uploading your videos to both Facebook & YouTube and see what happens. The trend is definitely going that way.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. If you have tried posting directly to Facebook, what did you think?

The first month of the New Year is always a time of reflection and goal setting here at Fireside Production. We gather as a team to look back at the successes and lessons of the past year – and to review our personal and professional goals for the coming months. I think it is extremely powerful share your hopes and goals… defining them, speaking them aloud is motivating in helping to make your goals reality.

As Fireside moves into its 10th year, I’m looking forward to growing our team. We will be adding another videographer/editor and eventually, another producer… which will improve shoot availability for our Clients. Of course, as you grow, ensuring quality is foundational. We’ll work hard to make sure each member of the Fireside team lives our four Core Values: Create Experiences, Think Strategically, Bring Spirit! and Make An Impact. These values truly guide everything that we do at Fireside Production – from the way we interact with our Clients and each other to how we approach that first quote for a new project.

One of our great accomplishments of the past year is how we made an impact in our community. In 2014, Fireside Production provided nearly $41,000 in donated and discounted video production services to our non-profit Clients. That’s a nearly 160% increase in in-kind services from the previous year. You can bet Fireside will continue to Make An Impact to support this great community in which we live and work in 2015. We hope you’ll consider Fireside Production when planning your video marketing needs for the year to come.

My name is Kala Montoya and this fall, I joined the Fireside Production team as the new Production Assistant. It has been a whirlwind to become a part of this incredible team, and I cannot wait to see what 2015 brings our way!

I am a Packer-loving Cheese-head who now calls Denver home. I have always had a passion for writing and storytelling, which is what led me to pursue a degree in Journalism. I’m thrilled to extend that passion to a new platform – video. I love seeing a story, initially as a vision, and watching the Fireside process unfold to really bring it to life. I have enjoyed meeting our Clients so far and hearing your unique stories!

When I’m not busy at work and school, I like to get outdoors and spend time with my husband and fur-babies. Sports have always been a huge part of my life… whether its running, snowboarding or hiking.

I look forward to working with each and every one of you and hope to meet you soon!